Fair Work Amendment Bill is a recipe for exploitation

Jenna Price

Imagine a job where your boss could choose how you were going to be paid. And then imagine if he didn't have to tell anyone about what he'd done. Didn't have to register those arrangements with anyone. Didn't have to get the all clear.

Didn't have to worry about minimum conditions or wages.

I'd rather have someone overprotecting me in the workplace than throwing me to the dingoes of downtown.

Now, that might work perfectly well if you are in a job where there are skills shortages. Where you have experience. And when you don't feel as if any discussion with your boss about your wages and conditions will end up with you having your head bitten off. Or worse, dismissed.

Remember the furious response to Work Choices before the 2007 election. The Australian electorate got mad and then got even.

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And this is why I am completely baffled by the silence over the Fair Work Amendment Bill.

On Wednesday, the Senate votes on this bill. And Australians barely know a thing about it.

Rae Cooper, associate professor in employment relations, at the University of Sydney's Business School, says of the failed WorkChoices laws: "There was a massive outcry about the effect of AWAs, particularly on those most vulnerable in the labour market."

She says there are more protections in the present Fair Work Act than under the WorkChoices arrangements. But there are still some challenges. Sure, employees have to put in writing that their flexible work arrangements will leave them better off. But, seriously, unless you are a person with a great deal of power in your workplace, how are you going to argue with your boss?

"Frankly, how will a mother seeking flexibility to fit with care arrangements and who is desperate for her job manage to genuinely negotiate on an individual basis?" Cooper asks.

"The disparity of power regardless of signatures on contracts is still significant."

She is also particularly concerned about young people, particularly those working in service industries.

The difficulty here is that so many people with no power try to represent themselves. Solid unionisation is low and individuals have few bargaining skills and little leverage. The big unions, with significant bargaining experience, have been able to ring fence particular issues through the bargaining process (and some believe they've done too much).

But I swear, I'd rather have someone overprotecting me in the workplace than throwing me to the dingoes of downtown. These changes will make it possible for employers to offer individual contracts that will cut take home pay and go below the award minimum. Basically, offering pizza for pay.

More women are paid at the award minimum than men. Women are the ones who work in the cafes, community workers, childcare workers, cleaners.

Now Eric Abetz, the monster who claimed abortion was linked to breast cancer, claims these changes are good for women. He says women will be able to trade their penalty rates for flexible working hours.

When Abetz was trying to sell this concept last year, he said: "It stands to reason that [a mother] would be trading up by sacrificing penalty rates two days a week for the non-monetary benefit of spending time with her children."

So, we are more poorly paid, we are more likely to work at award rates, and less likely to have the opportunity to advance. And somehow, now, we are expected to make another financial sacrifice.

If this gets through, no one will be monitoring these arrangements. As Cooper points out, "What we really need is to protect employees, we need some mechanism for lodgement and review of content.

"You can't have protection unless you have compliance and overview."

Sounds like a recipe for exploitation and victimisation. Michele O'Neil, the national secretary of the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia, says she believes it's worse than WorkChoices. She says the concept of having to reveal that you have invited the union, one of the proposed changes, into your workplace is terrifying.

Now, I belong to two unions and I'm a pretty strong person. But imagine if you didn't have that kind of personality and you were wanting to invite the union into your workplace. If you are worried about being bullied by your boss, there's the recipe right there.

"We saw that the workers identified with the unions were the ones that were punished," she said.

O'Neil is also concerned about the path these changes pave for low-paid workers to lose money.

"We have already seen K-Mart vouchers for work on a Saturday. This is exactly the sort of trade-off that companies will try and impose on workers."

She says her union's experience is that these conditions are imposed on workers and the implication is that employees will lose jobs unless an agreement is made.

So cutting the minimum wage and offering vouchers and food for work. Sounds like income management to me. From the very people who can't manage their own business costs in the first place.

I'm with the Unions Australia campaign. Write to the crossbench senators right now and tell them to vote no on Wednesday.

26 comments

Well said Jenna, maybe the media are a little busy war mongering and Union bashing via the RC to allow the ACTU or any Union a front page story about it.

Commenter

red

Location

wollongong

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 7:32AM

It depends on what is worth mroe to you, money or time with your kids. If time with your kids is more important than you should be able to say "dont roster me on those shifts" and the boss should be obligated to stick to it. Most bosses will try to roster people for when they want to work as that reduces "sickies" and staff turn over. However you cant have all weekends and every public holiday off and expect to get the same pay as someone who works those shifts, life doesnt work that way. Just work out what is most important to you and make the sacrifices you need to to achieve it.

Commenter

Jane2

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 8:14AM

Yes but most bosses aren't reasonable. All they hear is "I can't" and will act out of spite. They do already when they can, No one is asking to be paid the same as people working weekends or holidays. They are asking for reasonable working conditions. I work in the healthcare industry and not only do I have to rearrange my and my kids lives but the shift work effects all aspects of how I eat, sleep, manage appointments etc. That is why we get compensated for it. But I don't. As a contractor they pay the worst money they can already. For example I am supposed to get a meal allowance at night or an actual meal. What I get is a stale sandwich or left over patient food, even the mashed s*&t they serve has been left for us. I can't do anything with a K-mart voucher if it was offered. I don't want vouchers or crappy leftovers. It won't pay the bills.

The long game is being played. Cut off the dole to the mass young. Create a pool of cheap labor who will accept ANY conditions. Bring in foreign workers who are submissive and compliant. (I don't know why, most people are already). Unions were formed for a very good reason. They fought a long fight for our rights. Now we are throwing them away. These are the working conditions we are handing our children unless we fight back.

Commenter

Mable

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 9:30AM

Fair Work Legislation, Minimum Hour Requirements, the Minimum Wage in its current form are all job killers. Young people aren't given a look in when it comes to employment. Why would you hire someone with zero experience and have to pay them the same wage as you pay someone who has experience? Why would you employ someone for 3 hours when you only need them for 2 hours? The Labor party and the Unions need to rethink their job killing strategy if they don't want this generation of young people to remain perpetually unemployed. The current youth unemployment statistics speak for themselves! The current written in stone labour rules need a serious review and the unions need to come to the party.

Commenter

gemma

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 8:20AM

gemma, have you not heard of junior pay rates?

Commenter

red

Location

wollongong

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 10:02AM

Yeah, we should have no protections at all like the USA. What an economic success they are...

NOT.

Commenter

Dan

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 11:41AM

Eric Abetz is a liar like all these pollies telling you one thing and doing another. Work choice by stealth that is all it is the quicker we get rid of this mob the better.

Commenter

Wayne

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 8:29AM

And do tell Comrade Wayne what is so terrible about work choice? I kinda like the sound of "choice".....I guess that's a word that is totally omitted from the Union & the Union Party lexicon as we all know how much they hate choice and want us all "equalised" - no matter our situation, our ability, our education, our experience, our willingness to be flexible....

Commenter

gemma

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 9:27AM

But Wayne don't forget as Eric "the walking dead"Abetz said recently "we can always get a job picking fruit in Tasmania.

This current government abides by "the born to rule" principle and really do not hane any sense of social justice.

Commenter

The Gumpster

Location

The Gap Q

Date and time

September 02, 2014, 10:11AM

What would you expect from a bunch of middle aged middle class men who have mostly never had a "real" job. This group of course are not "middle income" - anything but, and I bet their wives, and kids will be looked after by the Blue Tie Old Boys networks - no min wage crappy job for them, and no rip offs . . .